Though he was published in scientific journals at 14 and venerated by Albert Einstein, James Clerk Maxwell's name isn't well known today. The Science Show takes a look at his life on the 150th anniversary of his theory of electromagnetism.

Albert Einstein once said, 'I stand not on the shoulders of Newton, but on the shoulders of James Clerk Maxwell.'

But don't take Einstein's word for it—in 1999, a Physics World poll asked over 100 distinguished physicists who the greatest-ever physicist ever was.

James Clerk Maxwell came in third place, after Einstein and Newton. Galileo, that young ruffian, came in sixth. Richard Feynman, a comparative laggard, seventh.

Every computer screen and mobile phone uses the same principles Maxwell enunciated in his great papers of the 1860s.

Malcolm Longair, physicist

Why was Maxwell so significant?

'Up until the time of Maxwell, one was dealing with a mechanical world,' says Malcolm Longair, emeritus professor of natural philosophy at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University.

'What Maxwell did was provide the essential bridge between a mechanistic model and the model that we use in the 21st century.'

Maxwell, to hear Longair and other physicists tell it, laid the very foundations for modern society with his work in colour theory, thermodynamics, physics and mathematics.

'Every mobile phone, every television screen uses the same principles Maxwell enunciated in his great papers of the 1860s.'

So why has Maxwell largely been forgotten?

'The real fundamental reason is that his contributions are not easily understood to the layperson,' says Longair.

Some background: James Clerk Maxwell was born in 1831, in Edinburgh, to reasonably wealthy parents.

Biographies of the boy mention his prodigious intellect and memory—at the age of eight, he was reported to be able to cite large tracts of Milton, as well as the 119th Psalm (the Bible's longest) in its entirety.

Maxwell's first scientific paper—on producing complicated geometric shapes through simple instructions—was read to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was 14 years old. The society didn't accept submissions from minors, and so the paper had to be presented on his behalf.

He went to Cambridge for his tertiary studies, and would go on to win the Smith's Prize—awarded to the student with the best performance in a series of mathematics and physics exams. He became a fellow of Trinity at 23. His father died the following year.

Maxwell had always been interested in colour and light, and began to study it seriously while at Trinity. Chiefly, he wanted to know why mixing different colours of light produced different results to mixing different colours of paint.

He wasn't alone in this; previous work by Young and Helmholtz had theorised that the human eye contained three colour receptors—though thr precise mixture of colours they responded to had not yet been demonstrated.

Maxwell's experiments projected an image through three filters—red, green, and blue. Those projectors were then aligned by Maxwell to display a colour image. The 'Maxwell colour triangle', as it became known, formed the basis for the chromaticity chart released in 1931 by the Commission Internationale de l'Eclairage, the international governing body on colour.

Maxwell was also an inveterate poet with a defiantly quirky sense of humour—when he moved to Aberdeen for a natural philosophy position, he was said to remark: 'No jokes of any kind are understood here. I've not made one for two months.'

But it is for his theory of electromagnetism that Maxwell is best remembered.

Einstein described Maxwell's theory of electromagnetic radiation as 'the most profound and the most fruitful since the time of Newton'.

'It's absolutely tremendous,' says Longair. 'It produced the set of mathematical equations describing how classical electromagnetic fields, and currents and voltages, are all tied together in one beautiful symmetric framework.'

Maxwell's equations described how charges and currents can create electric and magnetic fields, influencing the behaviour of particle movement within.

Such theories of electromagnetism also accounted for how light moved through a vacuum without the assistance of a helpful medium like the ether. It might now seem like an arcane discovery, but at the time the concept was revolutionary.

'Once the next generation got a hold of the idea of fields, that became the normal language of physics, and that lead to Einstein's great discoveries of general relativity and so on,' says Longair.

Maxwell was to die at the relatively young age of 48. Ten years after his death Hertz conclusively proved what Maxwell had theorised.

It is now the 150th anniversary of the publication of Maxwell's theories, and Malcolm Longair is determined to celebrate Maxwell's scientific legacy—through his writings and his role at Cambridge.

'It's not just because I'm Scottish,' Longair notes wryly. 'There's no question in my mind that he is on par with Newton and Einstein in the significance of their contributions to understanding the way that the world works.

'Without their works we wouldn't have the civilisation that we have, we wouldn't have all the electronic industries, we wouldn't have our ability to understand the way the world works, and what we should do to make it better and preserve it for future generations.'

Comments (8)

Mark :

Bob Orr :

Igor Bray :

03 Dec 2015 8:29:48pm

Thanks yet again Robyn, your contribution is gratefully appreciated. Though alluded to above, there is the suggestion that Einstein came up with the idea of the constancy of the speed of light by considering solely Maxwell's equations. This would explain Einstein's admiration quote, and is contrary what is often taught in regard to the significance of the Michelson-Morley experiment.

Shane 2 :

03 Dec 2015 8:56:07pm

Maxwell still has star status to scientists. He is generally ranked with Newton and Einstein in the league of great physicists. Special mention should go to Heaviside who distilled Maxwell's equations into a set of four using vector notation.

jk22 :

04 Dec 2015 7:22:56am

Bless the noble Scot! It is so good to really come to grips with what 'the process' of history excludes. Just goes to show, that 'news' and 'current affairs' know and gives us little. The wonderful Scottish mould.